


Both of Angelic Stock

by athousandelegies



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandelegies/pseuds/athousandelegies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An analytical sort of story that examines first Aziraphale's and later Crowley's first experiences in a human form. As each grows used to his new body and falls in love with Earth, both slowly realize that something important is missing in their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aziraphale's Eden

**Author's Note:**

> I'm experimenting with my style a bit; this story is almost completely devoid of dialogue. And because I haven't been giving dear Azi enough love in my fics so far, this first part of the story stars him and his first years on Earth! Like I said, it's experimental; it focuses less on an actual plot and more on an analysis of Aziraphale.

Angels are not supposed to feel lonely.

Not only is it not proper, it simply never comes across their ethereal minds that loneliness might be something they are capable of experiencing. In Heaven they bask eternally in the Presence, their beings mingling with each other and with that ineffable Light, never isolated, never cut off from the reassuring company of a million brothers and sisters.

But Aziraphale had been cut off from his brethren for quite some time now.

He had a body: the entirety of his considerable angelic might, the full intensity of his heavenly aura, was squeezed into one tiny corporeal form.

He remembered that first moment on Earth, after he'd been assigned to the Eastern Gate. He'd been standing (well, not literally _standing_ , more like...floating, or simply Being...there are no human descriptions to fit the action his purely spiritual essence was performing) before the glorious Throne, accepting his commission—and then suddenly he'd been standing on two physical feet, the entirety of his essence compressed into one dense space.

After a timeless expanse of nothing but spiritual sensations in Heaven, suddenly he and the world around him were solid. It was, to make a gross understatement, absolutely overwhelming.

Imagine your body—skin, bones, and all—being crammed into a bottle the size of a pecan shell. Imagine also that you have been blind, deaf, and mute your whole life, that the nerves beneath your skin have never before been able to process feeling, so that your entire world has been composed of wordless thoughts wafting aimlessly through your mind. And imagine that suddenly, from within that ludicrously minuscule little bottle, sight, sound, and sensation are suddenly given to you, with light streaming mercilessly in and noises roaring all about and a gale of wind tearing about your skin. ...You cannot possibly, of course, properly imagine such a thing—and even if you could, it is a woefully inadequate analogy to what Aziraphale felt as flesh encompassed his ethereal form for the first time.

He reeled, tumbling backwards into the soft grass of Eden at the assault on his newly-acquired senses. His essence was bombarded from all directions by things his mind couldn't even begin to describe to itself.

He lay there for a long, long while—hours, if he'd had a strong enough grip on time yet to process them as they slipped by. The sun had set and an impossible number of stars—so that there was more white light than empty blackness in the sky—had appeared with a bright sliver of silvery moon high above him when he stirred at last.

Gingerly, he opened the eyes he'd kept firmly shut (the light forcing its way past closed lids had been overpowering enough without the addition of vision) and from where he lay on his back he stared awe-struck at the brilliant nighttime sky. After a while he managed to work out how to move, and clumsily sat himself up.

They didn't feel like extensions of himself, his limbs—not yet. They were cumbersome things, attached to his confining shell of a body. But once he'd had time to adjust, he found that the messages his flesh was sending to his new brain were really very pleasant—"breeze" was a word that flashed into his mind at the whispering feeling breathing softly over him, and "grass" for the "green" stuff poking gently at his bare skin from the "ground" below him. Words. They unobtrusively presented themselves to his thoughts as the need arose for each of them. He marveled.

Sky, rock, tree, stream. High, hard, tall, wet. _Beautiful_.

"Reflection" was the word for the picture the stream made as he leaned over it. "Face": tree-colour, earth-colour—oh, "brown"! He smiled; "lips" his brain informed him, and his smile grew, so that "teeth"—star-shiny, moon-white—was the next word to come to him. "Hair": this was darker-than-brown, this was like the spaces between the stars. He reached up and touched his hair with awkward hands, feeling its smoothness, how strands of it drew apart around his fingers. And "eyes"—he liked those, he liked them very much, glittering softly in the starlight. They reminded him of the water they were reflected in, only they shone with a darker hue. He shut them experimentally—no more pictures entering his brain. He opened them again—river, trees, and sky all reappeared.

"Wings" were the two feathery appendages springing from his back. They felt Right, more connected to his angelic essence than his bumbling arms and ungainly legs. He fluttered them experimentally, enjoying the gentle radiance they seemed to emit of their own accord, stark against his dark skin.

A glint caught his eye in the dimness, a shimmer like shadow, as a long thin shape moved lithely through the grass. Its onyx scales glittered each time the starlight caught them.

"Serpent," said his brain. _Beautiful_.

All the while, as he practiced with his new form and investigated his new world, Aziraphale could still feel the tug of his siblings, their beings still mingling with his own as they did in Heaven. He attempted to send images and words back through the link to share with them, but was only met with flickers of confusion. He gave up.

As the months, and then the years, passed, his memories of Heaven faded. The glories and tranquil bliss of that realm became like a dream, recalled fondly but pushed into the background by the more immediate Present. He grew accustomed to his vessel, his flesh as comfortable to him as his angelic spirit.

He wept bitterly one day, perhaps a decade later, when he realized he could scarcely feel the pull of all the essences of his brothers and sisters—what had been a strong bond had grown faint. Flashes of their bliss pulsed weakly along the link, but he hardly noticed them unless he concentrated. He was no longer part of the web, but a loose thread hanging off it, occasionally receiving a message down the line but not feeling every sway of the whole as he once had.

But he did not mourn for long—Earth kept him busy and there were always new sights, new sounds, new sensations to be had.

After the horribly botched incident with the Tree and the flaming sword, his last message from Above had been to assign him as Heaven's field agent. He was to keep an eye on the humans as they struggled through a world against them in so many ways—to guide them when necessary and attempt to steer them from sin, and above all to thwart the wiles of Hell's field agent, a pesky demon named Crawly whom he'd met in the Garden that while ago.

They'd had a more-or-less civil conversation there, he recalled, as the first rain released cold droplets over Eden, and the fellow hadn't seemed too horrible—for one of the Fallen, that was. But orders were orders, and Crawly was certainly a threat to the humans in Aziraphale's charge. So whenever he ran into the demon, thwart he did.

During those first few decades on Earth, Aziraphale interacted closely with the humans, and freely revealed his otherworldliness to them. Some he came to care for specially. With one little girl—one of Seth's daughters, a sprightly, inquisitive little thing—he'd spent many a merry afternoon in the fields, tending to the livestock and weaving flowers into crowns for their heads and fragrant wreaths for their necks. She loved to run her slim little fingers through his feathers, and sometimes, when she was very well-behaved, he even took her on short rides, holding her in his arms and soaring no more than a few feet above the earth as she giggled and shrieked in delight.

Then one day, only just on the cusp of womanhood, she'd died. She'd wandered to the river to bathe all alone when the water was high. They hadn't found her body, washed up on the banks, for several hours after it was discovered she was missing.

Grief, greater than he'd felt when he'd noticed his weakening bond to his brethren, flooded his body like the water she'd drowned in. Heaven's static bliss seemed hollow in the face of such anguish. He forgot joy, he forgot ineffability, he flew off to a mountain's peak and hid there with his tears and his broken heart. "Broken," that was the word for what he felt.

He didn't try to get so close to any one person after that. He watched from afar as the human race multiplied like rabbits and spread out across the land—always seeking, always hoping, always dreaming, searching for a better life and yearning for something they didn't themselves understand.

It wasn't until centuries had passed that he noticed a small, prodding feeling growing slowly deep inside him. It took ages to find a name for it, but at last the word came: " _loneliness_." He was…lonely.

Angels are not supposed to feel lonely. Solitude does not exist in Heaven. No part is isolated from the Whole. Loneliness is for the Fallen, severed from the Grace of God, a shameful and despairing emotion…yet Aziraphale could not deny what he felt.

Earth possesses many wonders with which to beguile and delight a visiting angel, but one thing it cannot provide: solid companionship. Surrounded by nature's beauty and humankind's inventiveness, Aziraphale lacked but one thing—someone with whom he could share it.

* * *

Just a quick end-note: if you noticed that previously my version of Aziraphale has been blond and lighter-skinned, the reason he's darker here is that in my head-canon, each time Azi is discorporated, Heaven assigns him a new body that somewhat fits the coming era and the location they want him to focus on next. So here, since Eden is (using the Bible as my source) in the Middle East, his first body has Middle Eastern features. Just in case you were wondering.


	2. Aziraphale's Earth

The centuries followed one after the other, year melted into year and humanity scurried restlessly across the earth. Old faces yielded to new faces, one song gave way to another, styles altered, great cities sprang up from the dirt and tumbled down again. And all the while Aziraphale roamed alone, learning with time to tuck his wings beneath his cloak, to behave like a human even though he could never truly be human—because he did not die, because his face remained when all others crumbled back into dust.

There were ways to combat loneliness, of course, and he put them all to use most valiantly. The humans were always coming up with new things, and he flitted from one civilization to the next, doing his best to keep matters under control—promoting peace, advising leaders, and generally spreading goodwill—while trying out the latest inventions.

A writing system came fairly fast (much faster than modern anthropologists would have you believe), and Aziraphale found his strongest weapon against his lonesomeness. He read all he could get his hands on—more and more as the centuries went on. His love for people grew deeper, more personal, as their writings allowed him to delve into the minds of the best of them.

And, of course, there was the Enemy to keep him busy.

Crowley was his name now, not Crawly, as the demon had irritably informed him once during one of their routine sparring matches. The only being he could count on seeing repeatedly as centuries came and went—an Enemy, of course, but…Aziraphale just couldn't bring himself to muster up a righteous hatred for the demon. There were times Crowley almost seemed, well...not _entirely_ evil.

Once the human race had spread out a bit, it became fairly simple to keep out of one another's way; but when their paths did cross, it was only proper that they should fight. Their battles had been in earnest for the first millennium or so on Earth. Usually their matches ended with both severely wounded, each crawling away from the other to nurse their injuries in private, and decades would pass before they saw one another again. The world was big enough, there were cities enough, for each to avoid the other.

Sometimes, though, one of them would deal a fatal blow. Aziraphale hated being discorporated—the pain of spirit separating from flesh, and the disorientating rush up to Heaven. He was ashamed to admit it, but he just didn't feel comfortable in Heaven anymore—he always picked up a vague sense of disdain when his aura re-linked to those of his brethren. And getting a new body commissioned was always a chore. He was terrified that one day a new vessel wouldn't be approved, and he'd never return to Earth again until doomsday. So he took their battles seriously, showing no mercy towards Crowley—it wasn't as though the demon would show _him_ any.

Until the day that Crowley _did_ show him mercy. ...Maybe. No, probably not, surely not. Aziraphale always tried to shake off the feeling—surely it was impossible for a demon to show compassion, he'd chide himself. ...But, maybe. It had almost seemed that way.

* * *

It was all the way in fifth century, in what would one day be known as Ireland. Aziraphale was sprawled out among the long grass and clover of a meadow, far removed from any settlements. The sun washed over his skin—a freckled ivory now, like that of most of the other inhabitants of the island. The collar of his tunic was loose, and his feet were bare. His sword lay cast off in the grass not far away. Strands of his hair, a violently vivid shade of orange that made people stare whenever he hopped over to the mainland, glinted merrily like tongues of flame as the sunlight played among his curls.

His eyes were shut, and his chest rose and fell steadily, so that he might have been dozing. The hint of a smile flickered on his lips as he enjoyed the warmth soaking into his skin.

Abruptly a shadow came between him and the sun, blocking the warm red light filtering through his closed lids. He opened his eyes and felt his heart jolt in his chest.

A tall, slim form with dark hair and features looked over him, his lips curled into a smirk. Aziraphale sat bolt-upright and backpedaled away, staggering to his feet and assuming a defensive stance. Crowley! How on earth had he failed to sense the demon's aura? He'd let his Enemy sneak up to less than a foot away from him without a clue!

"Aziraphale," Crowley said, and stepped forward menacingly.

The angel had overcome his surprise fairly quickly, and he dived for the sword he'd stupidly left lying in the grass. By the time he wheeled back about to face the demon, Crowley too had a blade in his hand and a ferocious look on his face.

Their fight was fierce; birds scattered as their thrusts and parries took them across the meadow. Their arms whirred, their blades rang again and again through the startled air, far swifter than a human arm could have achieved. If anyone had been there to see it, their movements would have looked like the moves in some elaborate, otherworldly dance. It was not long before they both were panting with the exertion and sweating under the hot summer sun.

Aziraphale could have cried, if he hadn't been too busy ducking blows and delivering some of his own. Horrible demon! He'd been having such a pleasant time in Ireland. And his work on Patrick, the one-time fiery young slave and now wise and wizened bishop, had been going so well! That was probably what Crowley was here about, he reasoned. He thought of Crowley appearing to Patrick, whispering his cunning lies into the bishop's ear, and felt a strange mixture of nausea and fury.

"Are there not plenty of other places you could spread your foul sin, demon?" he cried furiously between sword-thrusts. "Why here? Why can't you just leave this island _alone_?" He couldn't help the plaintive note that seeped into his voice. Savagely, he aimed a particularly vicious blow at Crowley's head that nearly hit its mark.

He realized too late his idiotic mistake. Early on in battle, he'd unconsciously unfurled his wings, an angelic warrior's instinct in combat. Useful for balance, and for fleeing if necessary—but extended wings are very vulnerable, and Aziraphale was all too familiar with his Enemy's skill in exploiting any vulnerability.

They'd reached the edge of the meadow, which ended in a towering cliff. He'd managed to corner the demon there, and disarmed him with a lucky swing at his hand. Crowley's yellow eyes widened as his sword landed with a thump in the grass several feet away.

Aziraphale didn't pause a moment. But as his blade came bearing down on his Adversary, Crowley suddenly metamorphosed into a serpent, springing on the angel and latching on to one outspread wing with razor-sharp fangs.

Aziraphale gasped, feeling venom surge through his bloodstream, up his wingspan and into his arms. He dropped his sword as all feeling fled from his fingers, and collapsed heavily to the ground.

The snake reformed into Crowley, who dashed for his sword and whirled to face the angel lying in a corpse-like heap in the grass, his blade several inches from his frozen fingers.

Aziraphale watched as Crowley advanced on him, steeled himself as the demon raised his blade. He squeezed his eyes shut, the only movement left to him, and waited.

And waited some more.

He opened his eyes, just in time to see Crowley vanishing from his line of sight into the wood on the other side of the meadow.

He lay there, his wings bent at unnatural angles, the sun beating down on his motionless form as the poison pulsed its way through his body. His essence was struggling to combat it, and only barely succeeding in keeping his body alive. Then his vision blurred, and he knew nothing more for a long, long while.

* * *

A month later, a long-bearded man in a bishop's robes looked up at the sound of rushing air in time to see his Angel descending to earth with mighty sweeps of his wings.

"O holy one! Thou hast come at last," he said, relief clear in his voice.

"Patrick," the glorious apparition said, and Patrick felt the familiar gush of awe well up in his chest. "Yes, yes, so sorry for the delay. I had...an illness."

"An illness?" Patrick prompted, curious. What ailment could possibly trouble an Angel?

"Er, yes," the Vision said, straightening his robes self-consciously. "A demon—er, I mean...a snake...Yes, a snake, you know, bit me." A rather unangelic glower flitted across his face. "Stupid serpent," he muttered under his breath.

Patrick pondered this. "Dost thou mean the snakes are demons in disguise?"

"No! Well, um, sometimes. That's beside the point, really—tell me how you have been progressing."

And Patrick told him, stowing the bit about the snakes away in his mind. If even some of the serpents of his beloved Ireland were devilish, why, he'd rid the island of the lot of them, he decided.

* * *

The past month had been a very painful one for Aziraphale, spent huddled in a crevice of the cliff as the venom ran its course through his veins and his essence slowly and excruciatingly filtered it out of his system.

It would have been kinder simply to have killed him, he though bitterly—perhaps that had been why his Enemy had spared him instead. And maybe Crowley had assumed the poison _would_ kill him off, and slowly. The colder part of his mind latched on to that theory—surely it hadn't been an act of mercy; the demon had merely liked the thought of Aziraphale suffering before his body gave out. But in that case, a more timid voice in his mind piped up, wouldn't Crowley have stayed to enjoy his agony? Instead he'd fled.

He tried to push these silly speculations from his mind. Whatever Crowley's reasoning, it couldn't have been anything good; he was a demon after all.

Aziraphale told himself firmly that it didn't make any difference anyway; but a tiny seed of doubt had been planted within him. Could a demon—one who shared so much with him, who like him had wandered this beautiful Earth since its creation—possess a shred of decency?

It was a small seed. But it was enough.

Angels were not supposed to feel lonely. But for one that had spent millennia in the guise of a human, it was possible. And lonely people will often reach out to even the unlikeliest of companions.


	3. Crowley's Eden

Crowley's—or, as we must call him for the time being, Crawly's—adjustment to a physical form was every bit as bumpy as his heavenly counterpart's. More so in some ways, as his bosses weren't too concerned about easing him gently into his new body and didn't mind squeezing him harder than was strictly necessary.

It was not an envied mission—not because there weren't some lower-rank demons itching to get out of Hell for a while, but because the thought of encountering God's angels up above was too terrifying for it to be worthwhile. Satan had gathered the regiments and called for volunteers, and had been met with sheepish silence—until some idiot demon had thought it would be funny to shove Crawly forward. Crawly, to his horror, found himself standing alone before the Prince of Hell, but he knew better than to step back again.

"A VOLUNTEER. HOW VERY DELICIOUS. CONGRATULATIONS…"

"Crawly, your evilness," Crawly supplied, trying to sound as if he weren't about to faint from terror at being addressed by the most malicious power in the universe.

"CRAWLY. YOU SHOW IMPRESSIVE INITIATIVE IN VOLUNTEERING FOR THIS TASK. WELL DONE. GO FORTH AND WREAK HAVOC ON THIS NEW WORLD THAT GOD HAS SHOVED IN OUR FACES. DO YOUR JOB WELL AND KNOW THAT YOU WILL WIN YOURSELF A FAIR DEAL OF GLORY. … _FAIL_ , AND YOU'LL EARN A PERSONAL TORTURE SESSION WITH ME, CRAWLY."

And suddenly his still-shuddering essence was being shoved into flesh.

It was not the soft, warm flesh of a human that he found himself occupying, but something harder, colder, suppler. He lay in the grass for a long while, his spirit whirling with the onslaught of sense: the grass rasping against his scales; the sun seeping down, warming his cold bloodstream; the tastes-smells-sights his mind processed every time his tongue flicked instinctively outward.

After a few hours of lying motionless on the earth, his body stopped feeling like it was crushing the life out of his essence and he set about figuring out how to move.

Having never had limbs, he didn't miss them now as he learned how to wriggle himself, ungracefully at first, across the ground, the grass rustling to let him through. As he got the hang of it the movement became more elegant, a coiling and releasing of powerful muscle beneath scintillating scales.

Words were less gentle with Crawly than they were with Aziraphale. The demon would notice something, a rose's perfume or a crawling insect or a breath of wind, and the word would resist entering his mind, sulking at the threshold of his brain until at last it decided to shove itself rudely into his thoughts, forcing itself on his consciousness: _sweet_! _beetle_! _breeze_!

He wandered aimlessly around Eden for several days, taking everything in. He found the two humans fairly quickly, bumbling along in an orchard, giggling with one another and plucking cherries from the heavily laden branches one at a time to eat. He loved to spend long afternoons watching them. They fascinated him, with their naked limbs gleaming in the sun and their brown eyes taking in everything as curiously as he did—but for now he did not approach them.

One night when the moon was a sliver in the sky he slithered past what he thought was the Man, Adam, sitting by the riverbank. But something was wrong—this figure, gazing intently into the current's flow, had an aura unlike Adam's, more like...an angel's. And not a Fallen one, either. He paused, intrigued.

An angel in human flesh! And seeming just as captivated by the world as he himself was! He performed the serpentine equivalent of a grin.

The angel, absorbed in his own reflection, did not notice Crawly watching him. Suddenly though he looked up from the water, and with a flash of iridescent scales Crawly vanished into the undergrowth.

Then came the fateful day that would be recorded ever after as Satan's greatest feat: the Fall of the human race.

Crawly hadn't really meant any harm. And even ages later he'd readily argue that he hadn't really _caused_ any harm—sure, they'd been kicked out of paradise, but he'd done the humans a favor, truly. That first couple would likely still be wandering the garden today, mindlessly enjoying what they didn't understand. He'd given them Knowledge—was that really so bad?

Still, he was just fine with letting Satan take the credit.

He'd decided to speak to the Woman when she was alone, judging her the more approachable of the pair. But catching the one human without the other proved as difficult as finding a stream separated from water.

At last one afternoon, when Adam was playing with the animal he'd freshly named _dog_ , Eve got bored and wandered off on her own into the orchard.

Crawly watched her a while, then twisted his way up a tree and dangled from a branch as she ambled by.

"Hello," he said pleasantly. "Issssn't it a lovely day?"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, mildly startled. "You can speak?"

"Clearly," the demon replied dryly. "The name'ssss Crawly."

"I'm Eve," said Eve shyly.

"And what bringssss you over here, all alone? …Man getting on your nervesss?"

"Oh, no, not at all! I just fancied a walk, and he didn't fancy one.—hmm," she said, worry momentarily furrowing her previously unruffled brow, "I don't think we've ever wanted to do different things before." But her forehead quickly smoothed out again, anxiety as fleeting on her face as a footprint on grass. "Ah well, it's no matter— _he_ is having fun, and _I_ am having fun."

"Sssso you never get, you know, annoyed with him?" Crawly prodded. "He issssn't too domineering, or, I don't know, ssssloppy, or ssstinky or anything?"

She laughed, the sound ringing out as purely as her Innocence. "What? Of course not—he is perfect, and I am perfect, and we are always happy."

"How boring," Crawly muttered under his breath.

"But anyway, good Crawly, I do think you ought to find a different tree to perch in," Eve went on.

"Really? Why?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Because, that's... _the_ Tree you're sitting in. The one from which we cannot taste the fruit, lest we die."

"...Right." Crawly curled his head about, looking around at the supposedly fatal fruit. "Well, it lookssss pretty good to _me_."

"God told us it is Bad," she said, her eyes wide. "It is the one thing we must not touch in all this beautiful garden He has made for us."

"Okay, okay," Crawly said, wincing at her usage of the Name. He was beginning to grow bored, to his disappointment—he hadn't expected interaction with the humans to be so _dull_. How to stir things up, make it more interesting...? Ah, he had a plan.

"Sssssay," he hissed lazily, "what makesss you think the boss Upstairss isss right, anyway? I mean, look at the fruit here—a peel ssso shiny mussst contain truly delightful juiccce. Imagine it, dripping down your chin, sssoaking into your tongue, sssssliding down your throat…I bet—I _bet_ , He only told you it wasss Bad becaussse He wantsss it all to _Himsssself_."

Eve was staring at Crawly as though she'd never looked at something properly before. And she really hadn't, he mused—calling a flower pretty isn't the same as truly _noticing_ its beauty, after all, and it had never occurred to either of the humans to actually… _think_.

"I…" was all she said, tearing her gaze from the snake's gleaming golden eyes to look longingly at a particularly plump piece of fruit hanging just inches from her face.

"Go on," Crawly prompted, smirking to himself. " _I_ won't tell."

"I shouldn't," she said, but she was already extending slender fingers towards the fruit.

"Hey, can sssomething that looksss ssso good _really_ be all that bad?" he asked as she hesitated again, and with those words she plucked it from the branch and brought it to her lips.

Juice oozed from the fruit's smooth flesh and Eve let out a groan of delight, taking bites that grew more and more gluttonous.

The juice that stained her chin and fingers was as red as blood.

Neither Crawly nor Eve had ever seen blood before, of course, and so for the moment they could not make that comparison. But they'd both see plenty of it in the years to come.


	4. Crowley's Earth

After their conversation that rainy day in Eden, Crawly had been foolish enough to let himself hope for…well, not for _friendship_ with Aziraphale, per se…but some sort of truce, maybe. The angel hadn't seen completely unbearable—ridiculously pompous, as all angels were, but his holier-than-thou attitude hadn't been quite as overblown as it was among the rest of the hosts of Heaven. And, well, who knew, maybe he was as desirous for some sort of company as Crawly was.

That ridiculous notion was swiftly corrected at their next meeting.

Crawly had been whisked back to Hell almost as soon as news of the humans' Fall had reached his bosses' ears—not long after his brief conversation with Aziraphale, in fact.

He'd been praised for his work by Satan himself, and received a very generous commendation for a prime spot in line with those waiting for fresh human souls to torture—but to the astonishment of the higher-up demons, Crawly had turned it down. He persuaded his masters to allow him to return to the surface to continue to wreak havoc. He argued that it was in Hell's best interests to have an agent up there, seeing as Heaven did, and that it was more logical to send up someone who was already familiar with the place.

"And this time, may I suggest a human form, my lord?" he asked hopefully. "That's what the angel's got, you see. Plus, it'll be easier for me to tempt people if they aren't suspicious of me—and I doubt they'll be trusting snakes again any time soon."

It was granted him, to his delight. Unfortunately, though, his request took some time to process, and nearly twenty Earth years had passed since the Tree incident when he reappeared just outside the gates of Eden in a brand new human body—he looked very dashing in it, he thought, once he'd mastered the use of his limbs. There were a few irregularities to it—it retained the yellow eyes of his serpent's body, for instance; and his tongue was rather pointier and more…flexible than he remembered Adam's and Eve's being. But he'd blend in well enough, he figured, when more people had popped up. After all, being a demon had its advantages—he could simply _will_ them not to notice his peculiar features.

When he'd found the humans again, who had wandered off quite a ways from Eden, he discovered that things had gotten very rocky very fast in his absence. In fact, "finding" the humans isn't quite the term for how he located them again—"stumbling over the still-bleeding corpse of one of them" is more accurate.

He was making his way through a field that bore the signs of human cultivation, excited to think that after several weeks of searching he was about to see them again at last: Adam and Eve—and a few new ones no doubt; he was sure the couple must be hard at work heeding the whole "be fertile and multiply" thing.

Crawly parted a particularly thick cluster of wheat and his next step brought him toppling over a figure on the ground.

"Oh, pardon me," Crawly said as he regained his balance and stepped back a few paces. "Not the wisest place for a nap, if you ask—"

He cut himself off as he noticed that the person was lying very, very still, and was ominously silent—not snoring the way Adam always had back in Eden.

He didn't recognize the face, though it bore resemblance to its father's, and its hair was the exact same shade as Eve's. After only a few moments he saw what was wrong: there was a huge gash on the forehead, with something scarlet and sticky oozing out of it, pouring into the tangled beard and slowly pooling in the dirt beneath the head.

 _Blood._ His mind suddenly exploded with new words to describe the sight before him. _Wound pain corpse murder gruesome. Lifeless. Dead._

He staggered backward, clutching his head in agony and feeling a roiling in his stomach. He tumbled back in to the wheat and was violently sick for the first time ever, his innards heaving and retching.

When he finally stumbled back out, shakily wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, there was someone standing over the body.

A pair of brilliant wings drooped down over the figure's back, and a terrible frown was etched into his inhumanly beautiful face: Aziraphale, the angel from the Garden.

"Oh, Abel. This is not what you deserved," Crawly caught him murmuring sadly.

Aziraphale looked up as Crawly lurched through the wheat, and his frown hardened into a glower that was terrifying to behold.

"You," he said. "I might have known. Cain was a good person; he never would have done this on his own. But he had a tempter whispering horrific deeds into his ear!"

"Hey, look, I didn't have anything to do with—"

"Silence, thou dealer in deceit!" And Crawly felt his mouth shut of its own accord. "Thou shalt pay for thy wickedness today, vile serpent of the Darkness."

A sword was suddenly in the angel's hand—not the flaming one of old, but a good, solid blade nevertheless. _Bless it all_ , Crawly thought to himself, and willed a sword of his own into existence.

Neither won that duel; it was a pathetic fight, really, with neither very skilled in dealing blows while in a corporeal form. They would learn over the coming centuries how to fight, how to parry and attack and maim, where to aim for a mortal hit. But for now, both were clumsy with a physical blade, and after several long hours each slunk away from the other, nursing minor wounds that stung with the newness of the sensation of pain.

Crawly knew after that encounter to stay out of the bloody bastard's way, and he did. As the human race grew and spread out across the planet, he followed whatever civilizations Aziraphale didn't choose. For the most part, it worked very well, leaving him free to make a mess of things and the angel free to do…angelic stuff, he supposed.

Crawly developed a definite fondness for the people he was required to hassle. They were always building things, always dreaming up new objects and ideas, and when he wasn't working to make their life hell he was mingling with them in their cities and on their farms, laughing with them and drinking with them and occasionally even befriending specific individuals (though like his heavenly counterpart he learned very quickly the hazards of that practice, and as years passed he took greater care not to get too attached to any one human).

His masters checked in on him every now and then, and he made sure to have plenty of evil exploits to recount. He found that he didn't even have to be the cause of an immoral event to take the credit for it—as with the murder of Abel. And for the most part he had almost complete freedom, certainly more than could be had in Hell, and he loved every minute of it.

The only part of life on Earth that he didn't enjoy was when he ran into the angel. He hated battling Aziraphale, and hated when it ended in the discorporation of either one of them—it was decidedly unpleasant to end up back in Hell for the decade or two it took for them to get around to giving him another body; but it was equally horrible having to feel his blade enter the soft skin of his opponent , to see the quick look of shock and pain on the Enemy's face as spirit fled flesh.

But that didn't mean he could afford to show the stupid angel any mercy. So he didn't, fighting as viciously as one would expect of an Agent of Hell.

Until one day, when he just couldn't bring himself to deal that lethal blow another time.

It was all the way in fifth century, in what would one day be known as Ireland. Crowley—for that was what he now called himself, had been calling himself for several millennia (Crawly just wasn't _him_ , somehow)—was strolling across the wildly beautiful Celtic countryside, heading for a settlement quite some ways away. He could have flown, of course, but the day seemed made to be walked in. He was in no hurry; Down There had contacted him and told him to head over to this little island and make some trouble, but they still didn't understand how Earth time worked and probably wouldn't check up on him again for several years at least.

Anyway, he was walking along a sunny field, when abruptly he saw someone and stopped short.

His form had changed from the last time Crowley had seen him; his hair was now a violent shade of red and his skin pale and freckled—but there was no mistaking that aura. It was the angel. The Enemy.

Except…Aziraphale wasn't doing anything that was an immediate threat to Crowley's life, or even anything particularly angelic. No thwarting, no smiting, no good-deed-doing, just…lying there, in the grass.

Crowley grinned to see that the angel's freckled skin was beginning to redden in the noonday sun; the poor bastard would have some pretty bad burns by nightfall. For now though, Aziraphale appeared to be at perfect peace with the world, his eyes shut and a smile on his lips. He looked very unlike the bearer of heavenly fury Crowley had grown accustomed to seeing since after Eden. He looked…human.

Crowley suddenly had a stupid idea. A very stupid idea, he'd reprimand himself later.

There was Aziraphale, reclining there, as relaxed and innocuous looking as he'd been in the Garden. And, well, it was a nice day. What harm could there be in approaching him, and maybe…Crowley didn't know, joining him resting there in the pleasant meadow, or something?

They hadn't run into each other in a long while, and their last fight hadn't been particularly brutal. Perhaps they could put their differences aside, just for the afternoon.

Later, Crowley would wonder what the hell he'd been thinking.

How should he approach, though? "Hey, you mind if I join you?" or "Why don't we call a truce on the whole blast each other into oblivion thing for a while?" or maybe just "Nice weather we're having"—no, no, all those were rubbish. He sighed. He'd just wing it, he decided.

He walked through the tall grass until he was directly in front of the angel, who finally stirred as the demon's shadow fell over him.

Crowley formed his mouth into what he hoped was a winning smile. Aziraphale scrambled to his feet, a hunted look on his face.

"Aziraphale," Crowley began, but before he could say more the angel was diving for his sword where it lay in the grass and spinning around again to point it at the demon.

He hadn't even given Crowley time to explain himself, he thought indignantly, fixing the angel with a furious and hopeless glare.

What choice did Crowley have as Aziraphale lunged at him but to draw a blade of his own in defense? He wasn't about to let himself get discorporated without a fight.

Still, something ached inside him as he swung his sword again and again and the meadow rang with the sound of metal on metal.

Their combat took them to the meadow's edge, where a cliff overhead jabbed itself upward into the sky.

Both fought with a ferocity fueled by desperation and despair; Crowley's muscles began to burn with exertion and the angel continued to press him mercilessly.

"Are there not plenty of other places you could spread your foul sin, demon?" Aziraphale shouted. "Why here? Why can't you just leave this island _alone_?" He aimed a particularly vicious blow at Crowley's head that nearly hit its mark.

Aziraphale was distressed enough to have unfurled his wings, a fact that Crowley did not fail to notice. Finding himself cornered against the cliff and tiring quickly, the demon realized he'd have to use that mistake to his advantage if he wanted to survive.

Crowley's guard was wavering, which allowed one of Aziraphale's thrusts to make contact, knocking the sword from the demon's hand. To Crowley's dismay, it skidded several feet across the ground, far out of reach.

Aziraphale raised his sword. As the blade arched through the air towards Crowley, time froze.

Crowley willed his flesh to morph and shrink, folding in on itself into a smaller, smoother, scaled form. It was an unpleasant sensation, certainly; but it beat the feeling of a blade slicing through his neck.

In one fluid movement as his body was shifting into a serpentine shape, he launched himself at his Enemy, aiming for the exposed wings.

His fangs bore through soft feathers and imbedded themselves deep into the delicate flesh along the top of Aziraphale's wing.

He heard the angel gasp, and felt frantic spasms shake the wing to which he clung. He felt venom flow from his mouth into the angel's veins, and widened his jaws, dropping to the earth as Aziraphale collapsed beneath him.

With a thought and a twitch that flickered up his scaled form, Crowley rearranged his physique back into a human shape. He strode over to his sword and picked it up, then advanced on the angel lying in a heap in the grass.

Aziraphale's eyes were shut tight, agony scrawled across his freckled features.

 _Do it, you idiot. Just do it already._ Crowley stood frozen over his Adversary, lying crumpled and helpless in the dirt. _You know he'd do it to you—_ has _done it to you, and will again._

The pale neck exposed to Crowley's sword was pink with the first hints of sunburn.

To his chagrin, Crowley found he couldn't do it, couldn't summon the willpower to swing his blade. He fled from the meadow, rebuking himself severely all the way.

Later, when he was nursing a drink in the home of a family he'd persuaded to let him stay the night, he asked himself what the hell he'd been thinking. It had been an absolutely idiotic notion—what would it have accomplished even if it hadn't ended inevitably in swordfight? And why had he'd been so keen to talk to blessed angel anyway? What craziness had possessed him to go and seek an _angel's_ company?

 _It's because you're lonely_ , a tiny voice from the depths of his mind piped up, startling him so much that he almost tipped over his mug. He hastily pressed the thought down, back into the bowels of his brain; but he couldn't deny that he had thought it.

Lonely? Ridiculous. Well, sure, all demons _were_ lonely, in a sense—cut off from Heaven, isolated from any sort of affection, and close relationships being taboo even amongst themselves, they lived absolutely without anything that even approached friendship. But loneliness _suited_ them. In the melee of backstabbing and treachery that was Hell, such seclusion was a demon's one protection.

But on Earth…on Earth, surrounded by humans who all loved and hated each other, who based their entire existences on the relationships they formed with one another, well…a demon was apt to grow tired of isolation.

Yet what human could serve as a fitting confidant for a demon?

Crowley scoffed at himself—an _angel_ was certainly no better a companion for a demon than a human would be.

Still, over the next few months he wondered how Aziraphale was faring, whether he'd recovered from the snakebite or if the venom had managed to discorporate him. And over the next several decades, in which they both seemed to avoid confronting each other more fastidiously than ever, Crowley often thought back to his glimpse of a softer Aziraphale—the being he'd observed sunbathing in the meadow had not been a steadfast soldier of Heaven dealing out righteous smiting, but an angel who'd spent too many millennia in a physical form, basking in the simple human joys of sun and breeze.

And Crowley often wondered whether Aziraphale ever looked back at that day and pondered what had caused the demon to stay his hand.


	5. Chapter Five: An Arrangement is Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This is it, the final part! I really need to get better at ending my multi-chapter stories, and I do apologize for the ruggedness of this whole fic. :/
> 
> If you're wondering why my descriptions in here are so vague, it's because I honestly know nothing of eleventh-century Venice and did my best to avoid any sort of historical inaccuracy.
> 
> Anyway, this is it for this story; if you've been reading this entire time, thank you very much! Reviews are welcome, of course!

Despite all efforts at avoiding one another over the following centuries, they did have the occasional awkward encounter. Crowley would be sauntering down the streets of, say, Constantinople when suddenly he'd catch a whiff of heavenly essence and notice the angel walking along from the other direction. They tended to catch sight of one another at more or less the same instant, accidentally make brief, uncomfortable eye contact, and dart quickly away as if they hadn't seen each other at all.

The world was "so bloody large," as Crowley would put it to himself whenever these encounters occurred, how was it that they managed to run into each other so bloody often? He figured there had to be a higher power getting a kick out of pushing them into one another's paths and watching them scramble embarrassedly away.

And perhaps he was right, for fate seemed to grow tired of their evasiveness; one day chance shoved them together a little harder than usual.

* * *

It was the second decade of the eleventh century. Aziraphale was strolling along beside one of the many canals of Venice, humming contentedly to himself. His arms were piled high with scrolls, fresh from the San Giorgio Monastery—the bright, intelligent young monk he'd befriended there was always more than happy to make an extra copy of all works he transcribed for Signor Fell's sake.

He was watching a gondola—laden with crates and punted along by a tanned man whose bare arms shone in the evening sun—glide by when a figure suddenly careened into him with all the force of a meteor.

Aziraphale tumbled backward onto the hard cobblestones as he felt the wind whoosh from his lungs. Scrolls flew every which way.

"Oh, pardon me, so sorry," the figure was saying as the angel dazedly blinked the stars from his eyes. The man bent down to scoop up the rolls of parchment. "We should both watch where we're going next time, eh? Here, let me—oh. _Shit_."

Aziraphale finally focused on the being who had so unceremoniously bowled him over. He felt the air rush from his lungs for a second time as he found himself staring into a pair of glowing yellow eyes.

_Crowley_.

The demon looked as horrified as he was to be in this situation. Dropping the scrolls he'd gathered up, he turned to flee.

"Crowley—wait!" Aziraphale found himself gasping out as he found his breath again.

He wasn't sure what surprised him more: the words coming from his own lips, imploring his Enemy to stay; or the fact that Crowley obeyed.

The demon cautiously turned back again to face the angel.

"We—we can't avoid each other forever," Aziraphale said. Then, he suddenly realized that a couple of his precious scrolls were rolling unhurriedly along towards the edge of the canal. "Oh!" he exclaimed, and made a dive for them before they could reach the water, completely forgetting in his alarm the close proximity of his Adversary.

"Ugh, angel—here, er, let me help you with those," Crowley said, bending down again to pick some up.

Together they finished rounding up the scrolls, and Aziraphale got unsteadily to his feet.

"Thanks," he said awkwardly.

"Don't mention it," Crowley said, and then they stood in uncomfortable silence, not quite meeting each other's eyes.

Aziraphale sighed inwardly. All he wanted to do was head back to the nice little room he'd attained for himself and pour over these new manuscripts all night. But, well…they had to have this confrontation some time, he supposed. Best to get it out of the way now.

"Crowley, I must ask, and I hope you don't mind if I be blunt: do you intend to…fight me again, or are we through with those days?"

"I don't want to fight you." Aziraphale was startled by the earnestness in his opponent's voice, and looked up, meeting those golden eyes at last. They were gazing at him with an intensity that made the angel blush.

"Oh. Well. That's good," he said jerkily. He blinked, breaking away from that compelling gaze. He altered his voice to a more businesslike tone. "In that case, I think we really ought to work out what our intentions towards each other are."

Crowley's brow furrowed, as if the angel's words were hard to process. "Right," he said at last. "You got a place to stow those scrolls? I know where we can have a chat without being disturbed."

They walked through Venice in a palpably uncomfortable silence. When they reached the inn Aziraphale was staying at, he ran upstairs, threw the scrolls on a table in his room, cast them one last longing glance, and headed back out to rejoin Crowley.

Halfway down the stairs, he froze. What in Heaven's name was he _doing_? Walking side-by-side with the Enemy through Venice, agreeing to go someplace Crowley suggested to discuss— _what_ , exactly? A new relationship, one that didn't involve thwarting the demon's wiles? This was ridiculous, it was foolhardy; if Heaven found out, why, he could only imagine what they'd say—yet somehow, Aziraphale felt just the tiniest bit…excited.

_You'd better be on your best guard the entire time_ , he told himself sternly. _No telling what that serpent really wants._

* * *

Crowley led him along winding alleys and down streets he hadn't even known existed and at last they ended up on the rooftop of—of all places—a basilica.

"This is where I like to go to think," Crowley said as they climbed the narrow staircase spiraling up through the belfry.

"A _church_?" Aziraphale panted disbelievingly. His lungs were on fire—did these steps ever _end_?

"What can I say, I like a bit of irony," Crowley said, smirking down at the angel from several steps above him. "You're doing great, Az, don't go collapsing on me now; we're almost to the top."

"Are you sure—sure we're—even allowed in here?" Aziraphale gasped, clutching at a stitch in his side.

"Probably not," Crowley conceded offhandedly. He flashed the angel a grin that was so serpentine it made Aziraphale's concealed wings ache with a remembered feeling of fangs sinking into feathers. "But who's going to stop us?"

The view from the top of the bell tower was breathtaking—or would have been, if Aziraphale had had any breath left for it to take. He threw himself down on the stone roof as soon as they'd reached the last of those wretched steps, simply sitting and gazing as his heart rate returned to normal and his lungs slowly stopped feeling as though they were being fried from the inside out.

Crowley plopped down beside him—taking care to keep a healthy two or three feet between them—and together they looked out on Venice, with its buildings rising up from amidst the maze of waterways and its colorful people making their way by boat or by foot as the clouds overhead blushed pink with the setting sun.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Crowley murmured, and Aziraphale looked at him, startled: that's exactly what he'd been thinking. Crowley caught the look, and grinned dryly. "Come on, just because I'm a demon doesn't mean I can't appreciate beauty. I've been on this planet as long as you have, you know."

Aziraphale wasn't sure how to respond, so he simply said, "Have you been in Venice long?"

"I only just got here from Rome, but I've visited plenty of times in the past."

"And what were you doing in Rome?" Aziraphale demanded suspiciously, the words coming out more aggressive than he'd intended.

"Hey, nothing I persuaded anyone to do there was any worse than what they do themselves," Crowley said evenly, refusing to go on the defensive. "Turns out my work isn't necessary over there for the moment; that's why I thought I'd come here for a while."

They were silent for a bit, but it wasn't completely uncomfortable—both could pretend to ignore it by watching the sun sink lower in the west.

Then Crowley spoke, sounding like he'd had a thought on his mind for a while but wasn't sure how to voice it. "Hey, Aziraphale…I wanted to say, about the last time we fought, sorry for…well, you know."

"What, for latching onto my wings with venomous fangs and causing me a whole month of agony?" Aziraphale said, rather more harshly than Crowley would have liked.

"Yeah…that. It was a gut reaction, seriously. You were coming at me so fast, my old instincts just sort of…kicked in."

There was another silence, tense this time. Suddenly, to Crowley's surprise, Aziraphale broke it with a wry grin. "I suppose it's no worse than some of the things I've done to you—didn't you once flee a fight with your hand half-off?"

Crowley shuddered and touched his wrist reflexively. "Yeah. That was _not_ pleasant, let me tell you. It took _ages_ for my essence to reattach the bloody thing." He felt a little sick thinking of his hacked-at hand dangling from his wrist by a few sinews. Before he could stop himself he blurted, "I've _never_ wanted to fight you, Aziraphale, never."

Aziraphale looked taken aback, then his expression softened. "I'm not very fond of the smiting side of being an angel, myself," he said. "I've never enjoyed discorporating you; it's just been…part of the job."

They eyed each other—exchanging gazes with a being they'd been combating for centuries, and remembering that day in Eden when the thought of battle hadn't even entered their minds.

After a minute, Crowley decided that this sentimental moment, or whatever the hell it was, had lasted long enough. He shifted, and clapped his hands together. "All right then, angel. I don't want to kill you, you don't want to kill me, isn't that sweet? So how do you propose we work this little pact of ours?"

The sun sunk below the horizon as they talked, hour after hour, and the stars began to make their appearance among the clouds as they set out the basis of their arrangement.

Though it took a while to work it out, what they came up with was simple, really: they'd keep out of each other's way instead of thwarting and smiting each other; and on occasion they might even cover for one another. It was only logical, they agreed, to run the occasional errand for each other, to save time for the both of them as it were—"but I won't agree to do anything _too_ immoral," Aziraphale clarified worriedly.

"Of course, of course," Crowley reassured him. "Just so long as you understand that I'm not about to do anything _too_ pious for you."

Their discussion ended with Aziraphale saying, "And absolutely _no more_ _biting_ me, if you please."

"Deal," Crowley replied, smiling wide to reveal wickedly sharp teeth. "Now that that's all settled, I think it's time we had a drink—just, you know, as a gesture of goodwill."

He took the two goblets brimming with wine that had suddenly materialized from thin air and offered one to the angel. Aziraphale hesitated.

"Oh, come on," Crowley said impatiently; "if we're going to make this truce work you've at least got to trust me not to poison your glass."

"Of course," Aziraphale said, blushing, and accepted the drink.

"A toast: to…" Crowley thought for a second. To peace? Not exactly. Camaraderie? Not that, either, really. "…To not attempting to do each other in."

The goblets kept refilling themselves, and Crowley was very much surprised to learn that night that the angel shared his love of wine.

* * *

It wasn't as though their Arrangement transformed them into the best of pals or anything, of course. Apart from a fondness for the world of the humans, they really didn't have much in common. The demon's idea of a good time was gatecrashing banquets and parties and such grand events and nudging them into utter chaos; for the angel, the height of excitement was getting his hands on a good new book.

The one thing they had going for them was that, like two children who fit in with no other groups at school and so stick tenaciously to each other, they were both desperate for it to work.

And so it did work—they'd meet up every few decades to "compare notes," as it were; and why not do that from some nice pub or restaurant and get a decent meal and a good drink out of the event? Crowley came to look forward to their meetings, and he could have sworn Aziraphale did too, to some extent. Earth—despite the eternal bustling of its cities, the endless stream of humanity scuttling across its surface—could be a very lonely place.

As their relationship altered so significantly, from mortal foes to dubious associates to something almost like comrades, Crowley found himself at a loss for what to call Aziraphale in his mind. "Enemy" and "Adversary" weren't really appropriate anymore; nor was "stupid pompous bastard," he supposed. For the time being he settled on thinking of him simply as "the angel"—and he never did stop calling him that.

It wouldn't be for a long, long time, however, that he found the proper word for Aziraphale at last.

_Friend_.


End file.
